Bono Is Sorry—or Is He?—for U2’s Grandiosity in New Video ‘Apology’ – Variety

The singer reads a prepared faux pas in an interview with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe.

Being in U2 means never having to apologize, but Bono has gone on a sort of apology tour in recent years, even as he humbly talks about releasing universal iTunes albums and U2’s greatness. sometimes appear to be Or about the sound of his own voice. But now he seems to have regained all that humility and wants to defy himself in front of the band’s critics and petty people.

Bono’s current repentance stance on U2’s perceived sins can be found in a clip of a video interview Zane Lowe did with Bono on Apple Music’s Edge. Watch the exclusive excerpt above or , listen to the full conversation, which premieres today at 10 a.m. PT on Apple Music 1.

“Actually, I have an apology. Start reciting your speech.

“I’m sorry for the irrationality of youth in my 60s,” he says. “I apologize for being a singer who frowns no matter which direction I look in. I apologize for not being embarrassed to retire or thanking loudly for where I go to work. I’ve stretched myself to the stretch limit of the band.” I apologize for wanting to make a rambunctious guitar record that rattles cages, etc. Sorry to repeat myself, but rock ‘n’ roll isn’t dead: old, moody, mood changing Fireworks occasionally go off.

“But most of all,” Bono concludes.

After a flurry of banter, the singer said in a final statement that U2 were as humbled as the band ever needed, and that with some of the members’ other statements in recent years, it might be appropriate. The pendulum goes back to being proud to let their superego run wild, if not their actual ego.

The clip is from a conversation Bono and The Edge had with Low to promote their new U2 album, Songs of Surrender, which includes remakes of U2’s last 40 songs. He also appeared in the streaming special Bono & The Edge: A Sort of Homecoming, with Dave Letterman. While Letterman was visiting his two band members in Dublin, Lowe talked with Bono and Edge in and around his RV in the California desert.

Bono’s reference to an “unfair guitar record” refers to a new studio album, with the exception of “Surrender,” which U2 has been working on piecemeal over the years, though unlikely to be released this year. The singer said in a recent interview that the chances of the group completing and releasing that album are unlikely until 2024, when he tours with Larry Mullen Jr., who is still dealing with issues related to surgery that will keep him out. Said low.

U2’s back-and-forth about humility and/or not needing it recalls a minor controversy in 2022, when the two band frontmen wrote for the animated film Sing 2. Several headlines were made at the time when Bono told The Hollywood Reporter that he was sometimes “bored” by the sound of his voice. that. “

in a subsequent interview varietyBono appreciated the overreaction to his comments in public and more or less took it all back.

Bono said cheekily, “I’ll be back soon, so enjoy this moment while it feels so raw and messed up.” variety at the time. “I tried to be humble. I don’t want to suffocate you.

Retorted Edge: “He’s not as humble as I am. I’m just saying I’m much humbler than he is. Just for the record.”

“I tried it. I’m done with it,” Bono replied. As this new Apple clip of him a year later shows, sackcloth and ashes about U2 are no longer his.